firefighter-- >> there i'm going to have one of them carry me off later. thank you so much. see you on the after the show show, everyone. ♪ . >> brenda: the economy disappointing, growing less than expect this had year. and jobless benefits this month, rising. orders for long lasting goods, plunging. home prices still sinking. and small investments yanking cash out of u.s. stocks. and now, 83% of americans saying we're still in a recession. are they right? hi, everyone, i'm brenda buttner, this is bulls and bears. and the bulls and bears this week, tobin smith. jonas max father rerris and ste murphy. okay, john, forget new recession fears.

are we still in a recession? >> brenda, of course we're still in a recession if not approaching depression. when we talk about 83% of americans are recognizing we might be in recession, i think that number is low. i think that when you look at all the statistics that are out there, the home, new home starts, foreclosures are up. mutual funds outflows are up. and everything you think of as a good economic metric is going in the wrong direction and people are still talking about green shoots and positive developments and i don't see any of it. >> brenda: we're still growing as an economy, it may not be as fast as everybody would hope for, but 2.2% that's not anything to sneeze at really. >> absolutely, and the projections this year he for 2.5%, you know, one quarter, but it does feel to most people like we're in a recession and we'll continue to feel that way until the economy gets back to where it was before 2008, and especially before the wall

street financial collapse. and the big drag right now on the economy is the housing market. and we need to do something about those 15 million americans who are underwater on their home mortgages, and they're current on their payments. unless we can do something about reducing their capital and helping them get out from under that burden, that was caused, none of their own doing, then, we've got a big problem and the way i would do it, i would let them buy down for a home owners whose mortgages are under$500,000, and let me just finish quickly here and get $50,000 of the capital knocked off and have wall street pay for it by renewing the transaction. >> brenda: toby, in a recession or not? >> well, we are in a recession because 83% of people say that. john's point goes to a psychology issue here. regardless how we define a recession or an expansion, if we have that many people like, then that's psychologically, that's what we're seeing,

people sort of hoarding cash and not taking risk and slowing down, all of those things that you social with with a recession and now, forget about the-- >> and spending is like the highest it's been in a year. >> because it's been so depressed, it had a springback. what you're seeing, at that point at the margin people are not saying, yeah, i'm going to take that extra leap and buy the extra thing and doing the reverse, and that's what we're seeing, and you know, i'm not going to go off on the housing we need to bail people out of their house, but it's going to a take a long time. no one should have expected back to 2007. because the 2000 economy was b-s. home prices and mortgage and we don't want to go back to 2007. >> brenda: jonas, is that the point though? are people unrealistically using the wrong yard stick and thinking, you know, it should feel like it did in the boom when people were flipping houses and. >> yeah. >> brenda: and using their houses as an atm and now we

don't have that and now we're in a recession? >> the feelings although true and the paints that guests bring up are accurate and not anything to do with the recession. the economy is bigger than it was before the '07 collapse in real estate. you can't have a recession if your economy is bigger than a year ago, it's impossible. the term has a definition and we're not shrinking, the economy is in recession, they're shrink. and most of europe in recession and close to it. now we don't feel as good as back when the housing prices were up and the equity to burn and really low and that's not recession, that's just-- >> and your definition. >> brenda: okay. the official definition is two consecutive quarters of negative gdp. let's not get into that. because carry k, in the end people feel they're in a recession when they don't have a job or worried about losing their jobs and unemployment is still above 8%. >> first off, we're not in a

depression, not in recession, the numbers are okay, nothing great, but as you said we're still at 8.3% unemployment. the normal used to be 5%. the other part of the equation, there are millions and millions of people that have been taken out of the labor force not being counted anymore and these are the people that are feeling it the most, these are the people that are being asked the question are we in recession and they are in a recession, so it's based on an individual basis and the other part of the problem is, the total number of jobs out there is much less than they used to and until that changes, the feeling out there is going to remain the same. 83% think we're still in the soup. >> it's actually 8.2, 8.2, 8.3%, it's definitely above 8% really, 19. >> yeah, and that's, that's under employment, right. >> and the definition of recession used to be if your neighbor lost his job, then depression is if you lost your job, we're close. >> brenda: it does have a lot to do psychologically, steve. let's get back to the psychological issue, how

people feel. doesn't it come down to that? >> absolutely, it does and as one of the guests pointed out, it's mostly the loss of home equity. and 50% of the middle class in the country. 50 pest of people in the country, all middle class and people living from paycheck to paycheck, we've got to get beyond that and do something about the housing crisis. >> the idea of we have to did something, sounds like we're somehow going to pass legislation and says we're going to bail people out and not allow the free market to work. >> that's what we should do. >> come on, i'm upside down on my car, can i get outside of my car now? >> okay, let's not get thoo that-- >> we're off the lot. >> we have incredible incentives for owning a home. john, the issue of being a recession or not in a recession, how long do you think we're going to feel this way? >> well, i think when you look at regular people and you start having regular people like small business owners like myself, worried about raising oil prices and the

potential of raising taxes and health care costs and what we need to do to get out of the depression or recession, whatever you call it. start getting people jobs and small businesses owners are paralyzed with the fear of uncertainty right now. what is obama going to do and the the policies and when they're scared to deaths. >> jonas, there are positives out there, we're seeing the sass prices start to go come down and seeing still growth that is positives. there are positives in the economy. >> and year over year gas prices are cheaper now and i don't think it's going to your point, until enough time goes by. we're not getting down to 5% unemployment or homes adjusting for employment. and that was a bubble and got to get that out of your head, three it five years from you, it's not so bad now, i don't feel we're in a rehe session

and right now it's recent enough it's going to feel bad even though that never happened and you wouldn't feel so bad today. >> you have to factor another thing in also, and that's 16 trillion dollars in debt and founting and people see and know they're going to be paying for it where the worry comes from, why they think that things are going to stay down and get the big numbers, 83%. until somebody starts feeling better, you get it and the feeling remains bad. >> that's got to be the last word, thanks, guys. >> a big week for big labor, big problems for the job market? someone from neil cavuto's group saying a new union power play could turn out the power for a lot of job creators. that's at the bottom of the hour, but up next, we were the first to tell you about the ticking tack bomb set to explode at the end of the year. what if i told you one d.c. solution to diffuse it, could destroy everyone's 401(k).

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>> live from america's news headquarters, i'm patti ann browne. the secret service issuing tough new rules, the under the new policy agents will no longer be allowed to take foreigners back to their hotel rooms and banned from drinking within ten hours of their shift. secret service agencies director urging them to follow the new rule. police in tucson releasing new surveillance video shows a group of people walking just blocks from the home of isz bell celis. investigators are urging them to call 911 in the hopes that they have new information about the missing six-year-old. meanwhile, police in mexico are joining in the search for isabel who vanished from her home a week ago. i'm patti ann browne, now back to bulls and bears, and log on to our website at foxnews.com.

>> brenda: you know that ticking tax bomb, where a ton of tax hikes hit objen january 1st, guess what congress is looking at to fix it, hold on to your 401(k)? >> this is an oh oh moment. those spending us know oblivion, go where the the million is, since there's trillions in retirement funds let's go after that, let's change the the structure and let's give less money to people, they don't get to put their money away and retake more of it. and bottom line, they're going to take more of our money and we're going to feel less wealthy and hurt the economy more. the only good news i don't think it gets off the ground, anybody who proposes these gets unelected quickly. >> brenda: the government says it loses 140 billion in

revenue in tax dereferral revenue plans. >> the irony, the government, whose he been spending as gary says, beyond a drunken sailor, is now trying to solve its problem by taking money back from people who were saving. that's really sort of where we are in this country, is that, but i will say one thing, it looks like people are starting at least the knuckle heads up there or down there are start to go think, wait a minute, we're going to get 17 trillion dollars paid out and go to where the money is and maybe this is a deal, and maybe the silver lining, maybe thinking we're going to have to do something about this. >> brenda: well, jonas, there are plenty of things to change in here. there are lots of loopholes that could be closed. it's not as if there couldn't be rehe forms that aren't producted. >> you're acting like the 401(k) and ira, as an investment air dealing with roth ira's, and tax-free if

you die and other that are taxed again when people die, a mess that needs to be taken care of. this isn't going to close the tax holes, it's relatively small amount of money, it needs to be cleaned up and simplified the top 1% of 401(k) accounts have 62% of the assets and haven't helped small investors save. it's too complicated and koethe don't understand what they're doing and clean up the tax code, a big part. >> steve, is it a place to go? it's going to stop people from saving if we take away some of these incentives. >> absolutely. not just no, but hell no. we should leave it alone except we could use some reform, but taxing that, seeing it as a, you know, a pool of money we can tax to get out of as people pointed out this tremendous debt that we have to do something, we've got to do something for real, like trying to do something like this with negative blow back on retirement and

people's savings is crazy. >> guys, look it, we haven't had a budget in three years in this country and no one can run up the businesses or homes this way, maybe this is, maybe this is something, you know, people need to do and quite frankly, we have completely dysfunctional government system. i mean, this is like, you know, this is, you know, lucy pulling the football out from charlie brown. this is now something that says how serious the problem is, they're actually maybe looking at things. >> remember the net result of anything being done is money out of our pockets, and into washington and them telling us, they're going to do it to pay down the debt. i don't think so. >> this money has already been taxed and to jonas' point if people don't understand, they've been pumping trillions of dollars they don't understand something about, that's unusual, when i look at it you know what, the politicians are looking anywhere they can except at themselves where they have to put forward a budget. >> bingo. >> figure out a way to balance that budget.

>> thank you. >> we're creating disincentives for people to save money and put away money for their retirement, what the government is going to chase people into putting money into coffee cans and bury it in the back yard. >> jonas is going to say, by the way-- >> i think the plans they're talking about are cleaning up. >> and i've got to-- >> well, no, go ahead, jonas. >> and some people put $49,000 in an ira. does it make sense, because they're married to some of the money or can't use an ira and someone else put 50 grand in? i think it needs cleaning up and the whoem thing about being taxed. there's untacked money getting taxed through ira's and they have all kinds of gains and-- >> hold on. >> and that's tax deferred. >> if you die and with an ira and your children get it, it's untaxed money. >> the actuaries, down in washington have decided how much money they're going to get 20 years from now from that tax revenue, by taking it today, we're stealing from peter to pay paul, it doesn't

make a lot of sense. >> the definition of the government cleaning up a mess is making a bigger mess. and i have news for you, this has been a great idea, sep ideas and ira's and roth enabled people to put money away and forced them to put it away and it's been a great move. don't screw with prosperity and things that have worked. >> okay, guys. >> the scramble is on in washington to keep the student loan rates at the current law, will that only drive tuition higher and drive taxes more.

>> why preventing student loans rates from doubling, plus, occup

>> the fight over student loans rates moving on. and to stop those from doubling and now the white house is issuing a veto warning and it wants the low rates and it doesn't like how this legislation pays from. but jonas, you say stop the nonsense because it's only going to drive tuitions higher? >> they're not dealing with a co-issue, when you make loans available at a low rate. it's great because you can go to school. that's what happens to housing i prices, you could afford more home and they could be more expensive. and the student loans and subsidized loans, the government should rather figure out ways to control the other and may be limited what type of school to go to. what the cost, and return, do you earn that kind of money when you come out of that school. there's no control, here is a low rate, go wherever you want. >> brenda: gary, is this going to cause another bubble by artificially keeping interest

rates low? >> no, i don't think so. and i don't think there's a correlation between higher prices for tuition and interest rates here. look, let me give you a little number. ten year bond at 1.9% and we shouldn't have 6% for an interest rate for students, at this point anyhow, so, i don't mind it being down to 3%, but turned into one political issue and the president's been to 10 universities over last year and now of a sudden and it's a-- and i don't mind it coming down. >> and toby? what do you think? >> and just quickly, i mean, the point is, if uncle sam, and always going to kick the trough to money then the prices are, there's no correlation and we have this, you know, unlimited amount of money and getting exactly what you do, it's called inflation. >> okay, steve, tuition going up or down. >> college tuition has gone up dramatically over the last generation, monstrously faster than inflation, it has nothing to do with student loans and

everything to do with state government not sporting colleges and states as they used to. >> because they're broke. >> student overhead, no, they're not broke. >> and the state government-- >> and the private colleges raise tuition because they can. >> and in-state tuitions are very cheap. >> well, comparatively. >> they've gone up far faster than inflation, and-- >> okay on average they're growing about 8% a year. all right. john, what do you say? >> to me we should look this up under the liberal political play book, political stunts 101. it's not really a big deal no matter how you slice it. the federal government should be looking at helping states to lower tuitions. if you really look at it-- >> it's not just a democratic, both sides of the aisle. >> every four years. >> increase of 3% is 1800 bucks over ten years so the student in college about 9

bucks a month to him. it's not really a big deal, it's more of a political football. >> not with 165,000 average out of many private schools and many public schools. >> brenda: when they can't get a job to pay for it, that's kind of an issue. >> yeah, right. >> brenda: thanks, guys and thank you to steve for joining us. we appreciate it. the wall streeter ready to give occupiers a gift as they get ready for their may day blitz on wall street.

>> predictions and john you're on the hot seat. >> sooner or later the protesters are going to stop occupying wall street, stop occupation banks, stop occupying board rooms and occupy a desk, like monster.com and for an online employment agency. up 15% by the time the summer ends. >> brenda: was you at a previous protest. gary k, bull or bear?

>> how can that go on up in a depression, i don't like it, a weak stock, i go elsewhere. >> brenda: jonas your prediction. >> the u.k. is in a recession and america underwelcoming jobs, and it's still good for u.s. stock and up 50% in a year. >> brenda: john pull or bear. >> i don't like it, a bear on vanguard. >> brenda: gary k your prediction. >> housing stocks amazingly are very strong, lennar 25% in the next six months and sales are start to go grow for the whole group. >> brenda: all right. toby. >> big move, great call six months ago. now, look all of the people are worried about apple. tell you a couple of things, number one, there are big, big issues coming out with new 5 and going to do well. on the pull boyton beachiacks a you're missed the apple train. >> brenda: you've made a lot on apple. >> thank you very much. >> and not a thousand bucks in a year now. >> brenda: john, a bull or bear on apple. >> i'm very bullish on apple.